Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Dock

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Poirot?"

"What is the name of the student?"

"A girl called Celia Austin."

"How?"

"They think she took morphia."

"Could it have been an accident?"

"Oh no. She left a note, it seems."

Poirot said softly, "It was not this I expected, no, it was not this… and yet it is true, I expected something." He looked up to find Miss Lemon at attention, waiting with pencil poised above her pad.

He sighed and shook his head.

"No, I will hand you here this morning's mail. File them, please, and answer what you can. Me, I shall go round to Hickory Road."

Geronimo let Poirot in and recognizing him as the honoured guest of two nights before became at once voluble in a sibilant conspirational whisper.

"Ah, Signor, it is you. We have here the trouble the big trouble. The little Signorina, she is dead in her bed this morning. First the doctor come. He shake his head. Now comes an Inspector of the Police.

He is upstairs with the Signora and the Padrona.

"Why should she wish to kill herself, the poverina? When last night all is so gay and the betrothment is made?"

"Betrothment?"

"Si, si. To Mr. Colin-you know - big, dark, always smoke the pipe."

"I know." Geronimo opened the door of the Common Room and introduced Poirot into it with a redoublement of the conspiratorial manner.

"You stay here, yes? Presently, when the police go, I tell the Signora you are here. That is good, yes?" Poirot said that it was good and Geronimo withdrew.

Left to himself, Poirot who had no scruples of delicacy, made as minute an examination as possible of everything in the room with special attention to everything belonging to the students. His rewards were mediocre. The students kept most of their belongings and personal papers in their bedrooms.

Upstairs, Mrs. Hubbard was sitting facing Inspector Sharpe who was asking questions in a soft apologetic voice. He was a big, confidential looking man with a deceptively mild manner.

"It's very awkward and distressing for you, I know," he said soothingly. "But you see, as Dr. Coles has already told you, there will have to be an inquest, and we have just to get the picture right, so to speak. Now this girl had been distressed and unhappy lately, you say?"

"Yes."

"Love affair?"

"Not exactly." Mrs. Hubbard hesitated.

"You'd better tell me, you know," said Inspector Sharpe, persuasively. "As I say, we've got to get the picture. There was a reason, or she thought there was, for taking her own life? Any possibility that she might have been pregnant?"

"It wasn't that kind of thing at all. I hesitated, Inspector Sharpe, simply because the child had done some very foolish things and I hoped it needn't be necessary to bring them out in the open." Inspector Sharpe coughed.

"We have a good deal of discretion, and the Coroner is a man of wide experience. But we have to know."

"Yes, of course. I was being foolish. The truth is that for some time past, three months or more, things have been disappearing-small things, I mean nothing very important."

"Trinkets, you mean, finery, nylon stockings and all that? Money, too?"

"No money as far as I know."

"Ah. And this girl was responsible?"

"Yes.

"You'd caught her at it?"

"Not exactly. The night before last a-er-a friend of mine came to dine. A M. Hercule Poirot-I don't know if you know the name." Inspector Sharpe had looked up from his notebook. His eyes had opened rather wide. It happened that he did know the name.

"M. Hercule Poirot?" he said. "Indeed? Now that's very interesting."

"He gave us a little talk after dinner and the subject of these thefts came up. He advised me, in front of them all, to go to the police."

"He did, did he?"

"Afterwards, Celia came along to my room and owned up. She was very distressed."

"Any question of prosecution?"

"No. She was going to make good the losses, and everyone was very nice to her about it."

"Had she been hardup?"

"No. She had an adequately paid job as dispenser at St. Catherine's Hospital and has a little money of her own, I believe. She was rather better off than most of our students."

"So she'd no need to steal-but did," said the Inspector, writing it down.

"It's kleptomania, I suppose," said Mrs. Hubbard.

"That's the label that's used. I just mean one of the people that don't need to take things, but nevertheless do take them."

"I wonder if you're being a little unfair to her.

You see, there was a young man."

"And he ratted on her?"

"Oh no. Quite the reverse. He spoke very strongly in her defence and as a matter of fact last night, after supper, he announced that they'd become engaged." Inspector Sharpe's eyebrows mounted his forehead in a surprised fashion.

"And then she goes up to bed and takes morphia?

That's rather surprising, isn't it?"

"It is. I can't understand it." Mrs. Hubbard's face was creased with perplexity and distress.

"And yet the facts are clear enough." Sharpe nodded to the small torn piece of paper that lay on the table between them. Dear Mrs. Hubbard, (it ran) I really am sorry- and this is the best thing I can do.

"It's not signed, but you've no doubt it's her handwriting?"

"No".

Mrs. Hubbard spoke rather uncertainly and frowned as she looked at the torn scrap of paper. Why did she feel so strongly that there was something wrong about it-his "There's one clear fingerprint on it which is definitely hers," said the Inspector. "The morphia was in a small bottle with the label of St. Catherine's Hospital on it and you tell me that she works as a dispenser in St. Catherine's. She'd have access to the poison cupboard and that's where she probably got it. Presumably she brought it home with her yesterday with suicide in nful."

"I really can't believe it. It doesn't seem right some how. She was so happy last night."

"Then we must suppose that a reaction set in when she went up to bed. Perhaps there's more in her past than you know about. Perhaps she was afraid of that coming out. You think she was very much in love with this young man-what's his name, by the way?"

"Colin McNabb. He's doing a post graduate course at St. Catherine's."

"A doctor? Hm. And at St. Catherine's?"

"Celia was very much in love with him, more I should say, than he with her. He's a rather self-centered young man."

"Then that's probably the explanation. She didn't feel worthy of him, or hadn't told him all she ought to tell him. She was quite young, wasn't she?"

"Twenty-three."

"They're idealistic at that age and they take love affairs hard. Yes, that's it, I'm afraid. Pity." He rose to his feet. "I'm afraid the actual facts will have to come out, but we'll do all we can to gloss things over. Thank you, Mrs. Hubbard.

I've got all the information I need now. Her mother died two years ago and the only relative you know of is this elderly aunt in Yorkshire-we'll communicate with her." He picked up the small torn fragment with Celia's agitated writing on it.

"There's something wrong about that," said Mrs. Hubbard suddenly.

"Wrong? In what way?"

"I don't know. I feel I ought to know. Oh dear."

"You're quite sure it's her handwriting?"

"Oh yes. It's not that." Mrs. Hubbard pressed her hands to her eyeballs. "I feel so dreadfully stupid this morning," she said apologetically.

"It's all been very trying for you, I know," said the Inspector with gentle sympathy. "I don't think we need to trouble you further at the moment, Mrs. Hubhard." Inspector Sharpe opened the door and immediately fell over Gerortimo who was pressed against the door outside.

"Hullo," said Inspector Sharpe pleasantly. "Listening at doors, eh?"

"No, no," Geronimo answered with an air of virtuous indignation. "I do not listen never, never! I am just coming in with message."